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Sunday, January 20, 2013

Home

via teacherweb.com

"Tell me something about yourself, and the country you came from," said the Scarecrow, when she had finished her dinner. So she told him all about Kansas, and how gray everything was there, and how the cyclone had carried her to this queer land of Oz. The Scarecrow listened carefully, and said,
"I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas."
"That is because you have no brains," answered the girl. "No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home."
The Scarecrow sighed.
"Of course I cannot understand it," he said. "If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains."

~L. Frank Baum, excerpt from The Wizard of Oz

I've been reading The Wizard of Oz to my kids.
I've read it before and seen the movie countless times. I always loved the line, "There's no place like home." But I read it with new eyes a few days ago.

Is my addiction my "home"?
By the above description, YES -my addiction is my home. I'd rather be stuck in the gray than let go of my own will and move to The Beautiful Places waiting for me.

It's interesting to me that the Scarecrow is the wisest of all the Oz gang.
His life motto may have well been Socrates' famous line, "I know I know nothing."

I feel a lot like Dorothy. I don't want to give my addiction up. I mean, I DO. But I don't.
I like the idea of giving it up tomorrow, you know? And, like Dorothy, I feel I know better because I have BRAINS. I, like, know lots and lots of really cool stuff.
Right?
I like to THINK I do.

But really: I know nothing.
I'm going through the 12-steps, and it's helping me to develop humility, or as I like to think of it: my inner Scarecrow. The more I realize my own nothing-ness, the farther I will go.
Maybe someday I'll end up in The Beautiful Places.

And so I say, jokingly but seriously:
"It is fortunate for [Little Debbie] that [I] have brains."
Can I put brains in quotes? It should be in quotes. I have "brains."

My "brains" also -along with soul-searching recovery insights -thought this up while I read.